Astroturfing the Field: Elites, Reputations, and the Effects of Covert Corporate Advocacy on Public Trust

• In Event: 213 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Paper Session. Power, Professions, and Movements

Abstract

Field theories of collective action, consistent with social movement approaches, tend to ignore insurgent activity sponsored by elites, and also overlook how incumbents’ reputations shape audience evaluations of such efforts in the public sphere. In moments of field instability, incumbents must defend their position, but find that self-serving political actions are likely to be discounted, thus encouraging them to channel their claims through third parties. A clear instance of this is the widespread adoption of “astroturf” strategies in which corporations ventriloquize political claims through NGOs. An online survey experiment (N = 750) varied subjects’ exposure to astroturf campaigns according to whether (1) the revealed backer was a high-reputation firm, (2) low-reputation, (3) a firm with no known reputation, or (4) both the corporate backer and a competitor were unknown (“no-reputation”) firms that were each masquerading through fronts. The study finds that the exposure of astroturf campaigns, as expected, seriously harms the reputations of both the specific corporate sponsor and also (more strongly) the sponsored NGO, but exposure harms a firm’s public (extra-field) standing more dramatically than its (intra-field) reputation for business quality. Also, more strikingly, these exposures have a significant negative effect on citizen trust in NGOs in general (especially when the sponsor is a low- or no-reputation firm), but only affect overall trust in business when the revealed sponsor is a high-reputation firm. This research bears implications for our understanding of contention within organizational fields, business engagement in politics, and how publics police corporate authenticity and field standing.

Author

• Edward T. Walker, University of California-Los Angeles